Loyalty is: Royals… Athletics… Red Sox… Yankees…
The Johnny Damon Saga is unfortunate but not Earth-shattering. There are several pissed off people around here (and I've met some Yankee fans who aren't too psyched either), but I'm still pretty buzzed by the 2004 win to care too much about anything the team can do right now—even though I'm troubled by how very little there is left of that 2004 team, Theo included. I'll miss Damon, but I'll miss (and have missed) Cabrera, Lowe, Pedro, Mueller, Mirabelli, Bellhorn, Roberts, Myers and a few others too. Baseball is a business and that is a little sad, but so is football and the Patriots have managed to keep a solid core of guys while dealing with a salary cap! So I think the Sox organization has a lot to answer for when it comes to the live-and-die-by-the-Sawx fans around here (which, as big a fan as I am, does not include me).
It's hard to blame Damon in the whole deal because the Sox seemed caught off guard. Inexcusable on their part. Damon is a dense, narcissistic star who, despite what he had to say about loyalty, was going where said stardom would best excel (hence all the New York and Los Angeles talk). But the team was completely blindsided, like they assumed the whole negotiation thing was on holiday as they sat around the tree wrapping up pieces of Fenway Park grass to sell to lamebrains. Is this how you appease a fanbase when it comes to one of the game's most popular players?
In two years (if that long) I think the Yankees will be lobbying hard for the institution of a short-field allowance like in softball, where you can field a tenth player a bit behind second base, purely to act as Damon's cutoff man when he's trying to throw out a baserunner. I loved watching the guy play, but seeing him throw was like pulling out a nose hair: you cry out and then your eyes water. Someone recently wrote that he threw like a girl… throwing left-handed. Funny and true.
This transaction probably won't amount to much in the larger baseball scheme. Damon won't help the Yankees win a World Series because that offense was already stunning. What they need is for everything that went wrong last year with their pitching (Pavano, Wright, even Johnson and Mussina to an extent) to fully correct itself, and everything that surprisingly worked (Small, Chacon, Wang) to keep clicking. They'll score a lot of runs, and they'll need to.
As for the Sox, we'll see what a brand-new infield can do. I'm not too enthusiastic, and am already expecting a cruise-control year. They are looking squarely at 2007 when it will practically promote its entire AAA Pawtucket squad to the big leagues. One thing I'll miss about Theo is his commitment to the farm system, and in the next couple of years we'll see some amazing young talent all over the roster, pitching staff included. This year it's a bunch of "Who dat?" old dudes running out the final years of their contracts, keeping the field warm for the young studs to follow. At least the Beckett deal is pretty cool in the meantime.
If the Pats can win another Super Bowl (here's hoping for a XX rematch against the Bears; I'll probably make a playoff post after next weekend when I know who we're playing, but as of now I'm not too afraid of the Jaguars or the perennially overrated Steelers) then maybe the lunatics around here will settle the hell down, listen to their new Christmas iPods instead of WEEI and actually enjoy a Summer without having to constantly check the scores (Red Sox and Yankees), wonder where Manny's going at the trade deadline (because I think he'll still be here) and convince themselves that $12 isn't all that bad for two Bud Lights.
Let Damon have his bottle and get yourself to the beach. It's lovely.
/
2 comments:
Well said... Unlike most other things, I am naive & overly sentimental about baseball. (Childhood memories, etc.) I start buying into this idea of "we" or "us." It's never fun to be reminded that it is just a business, as you say.
Former Cubs 3rd baseman Ron Santo calls the games on the radio here. He'll go on at length about how in his day, (late 60s,) guys more frequently stayed in 1 place--even if more money could be had elsewhere. May be true. I wasn't there. Anyway, I don't guess it matters now.
It's sentimental claptrap I'm sure, but it's sad to think of some kid who loves the Red Sox, identifies it, @ least in part, w/ Damon, having to deal w/ this.
Ugh...that really is overly sentimental, isn't it? Ah well... Hope yr. team has a good year. (Mine too)...
I was naive once too, and that sentimentality can still overcome me once in a while (like with the exits of Cabrera and Mueller and the disgusting public disowning of Bellhorn and Embree, all underratedly HUGE components of the 2004 win). But Clemens leaving way back when officially introduced me to the business side of the game. (For the record, I thought he was asking too much for what he was, just like everyone else around here. In retrospect we could not have been more wrong, but I seem to be the only one who remembers that at the time we all blamed Clemens, and now everyone blames the old GM Dan Duquette. To borrow a phrase from Diamond Joe Quimby, Sox fans are all "a bunch of fickle mush-heads.")
I'm tired of all this talk about players being overpaid too. What's the difference to me if a player is making $10 million a year or $12 million? Ticket prices have always gone up regardless.
Even considering all this though, I'll still talk in "we" and "us." And I do feel bad for the kids, and for newer fans like A. who were introduced to the enthusiastic '03 and '04 teams, teams that are very different from what '06 will bring. Hopefully the kid with the Damon t-shirt and the poster on his wall will take up other hobbies along the way, and wait (like I did with my Varitek t-shirt) to buy the player-specific stuff only after said player has re-upped.
Post a Comment